Why You Should Use Videos in Email Campaigns

Why You Should Use Videos in Email Campaigns

Unless you’ve had your head in proverbial sand, as a marketer, you know that video is the present and future of marketing. But if you’re throwing out email marketing in full favor of video, then you’re cutting your impact by half.

Why You Still Need Emails

Email is still an essential part of a marketing strategy. Roughly nine of ten Americans have a mobile device, and 54% of opened emails are on mobile devices – meaning that email campaigns are still reaching a significant amount of people. Opening emails on mobile devices also means that you’re reaching consumers in real time.

Think about it this way: name one person you personally know who doesn’t have an email account. Not even one. For any reason.

Either you couldn’t think of anyone or you had to think long and hard – because today, it’s abnormal to be without one. You can’t even sign up for most social media accounts, apply for most jobs, or even travel without one. So when you utilize an email marketing campaign, you are increasing your chances of reaching a wide audience, perhaps the widest audience.

Email also reaches people worldwide and isn’t really limited by bandwidth, country conversions, or time constraints. According to the Radicati Group, a technology market research firm: “More than 34% of the people worldwide use email. That’s about 2.5 billion people. It’s predicted to increase to 2.8 billion email users in the next 2 years”.

Email is cost-effective – according to the Direct Marketing Association, for every $1 spent on an email marketing campaign, $40 in ROI is generated.

Why Videos Are So Darn Important

Most marketers already know this, but let’s down a quick rundown to make sure everyone is on the same page:

Video marketing will account for 80% of all worldwide internet traffic by 2019, and 85% of United States internet traffic

59% of company decision makers would rather watch a video than read an article

73% of people who watched an explanation about a product bought that product afterward

Email + Video = YES.

Okay, okay, you understand that email is still an important item in the marketing toolkit. But obviously video is still king…right?

Not exactly. It’s more like email and video are co-rulers: paired together, they make for a powerful campaign.

Video email marketing is a lot more impactful than regular email campaigns. Companies that use videos in their emails saw 55% higher click-through rates; 44% saw an increase in the amount of time consumers spent looking at the email; and 41% saw an increase in how many times their email was shared or forwarded.

Google Likes Your Video Email Campaigns

An added benefit from the increase in sharing and forwarding is greater SEO. Videos gain attention and popularity; emails make it easier to forward the videos; and the increase in sharing a popular video from your company is an improved Google search ranking. In addition, videos are more likely to retain attention, meaning that people are spending just that much longer on your landing page. In fact, a company is 53 times more likely to show up on the first page of Google if they have a video embedded on their website and in their emails.

According to Hubspot, 83% of consumers worldwide prefer to watch video content on YouTube. And Google owns YouTube. So if you optimize your campaign’s SEO for YouTube, you’ll attract more attention, and Google will notice that increase – subsequently upping your position with their search engine algorithm.

Some Practical Tips

Have an animated thumbnail or a video snippet embedded in the email

Even if you don’t include the entire video in the email, you still need to alert readers that a video is available on your landing page if they click on it. Make sure the thumbnail or snippet is moving! A still is just an image, which we know isn’t as captivating as a video, right? And make sure the snippet is capturing an interesting or exciting moment from the full video.

Make the video on the landing page autoplay

So, if the customer clicks on the animated thumbnail and go to your landing page, the video should automatically start playing. It’s a small brain trick, but if the customer gets to your landing page without autoplay, they are not likely to take the next step to click on the play button. They’ll more likely skim (unless the animated thumbnail was really incredible). With autoplay on the landing page, they’ll still be reached by the video marketing.

Your video should be explaining something

Almost all viewers – 91% – watch explainer videos to learn about a product or service. Of those viewers, 84% were convinced to make a purchase. Videos without explanations had a low likelihood of leading to sales.

And now…

…Go check those email campaigns. Don’t throw them away – upgrade them by embedding videos! Look back on the individual benefits of emails and videos listed above. Combining the two doesn’t negate those benefits: they double them.

Dubb easily combines video and email, and makes sure that an animated, personalized thumbnail is included in the body of the email.